, Grey did not find Watson before six,
and it was fully eight o'clock before they got settled at the Denver
House. But their eyes were not gladdened by a sight of the fugitive on
that evening, nor was she at breakfast next morning. The operatives
began to be alarmed lest the bland clerk had taken them in, and were
particularly so, when, at their request, for the purpose of ascertaining
whether she was in her room, he knocked at her door, and after a few
minutes returned with a blank, scared face, saying that the Jezebel had
left, and more than that, that she owed the hotel over fifty dollars for
board and wine furnished on the strength of her elegant and dashing
appearance.

On further examination of the room it was evident that the woman had not
occupied it at all during the previous night, but had left the hotel
immediately after dinner whether from a previous decision to do so, or
from one of those sudden impulses, quite contrary to the general rule of
human action, which made her an extraordinarily difficult quarry to
follow, or still, from some suspicion that she was being followed.

Grey felt quite crestfallen that he had lost Mrs. Winslow by one of her
characteristic manoeuvres, and at once made inquiries concerning her
baggage, ascertaining from the clerk that she only had a portmanteau
with her at the hotel, but had had a trunk check which she had exhibited
when asking some question about the arrival and departure of trains.

Grey sent Watson to intersections of prominent streets to keep a lookout
for parties, while he at once proceeded to the "Chicago Baggage Room,"
as it is called, under the Planters' House, where he ascertained, after
considerable trouble and representing himself as an employee of the
Chicago, Alton, and St. Louis road, looking for lost baggage, that Mrs.
Winslow had come there personally about two o'clock the day previous and
presented the check for her trunk, which had been taken away by an
expressman with "a gray horse and a covered wagon."

The next step, of course, was to find the expressman with the gray horse
and covered wagon, who had taken the woman's trunk, and this was no easy
matter to do. There were plenty answering that description, but Grey
labored hard and long to find the right one, and finally found it this
way.

Being an Irishman himself, and a pretty jolly sort of a fellow, he was
not long in finding a compatriot the owner of a gray horse and a covered
wagon, of whom